When the cold months start to draw near the dedicated skiers and snowboarders are rubbing their hands together with glee as they start planning their trips to the snow. And each year I also get anxious about seeing clients turn up at my door after they had blown out their ACL, or suffered some horrific back injury from a skiing or snowboard accident. Sometimes it is not even from an accident but from wear and tear over the snow season that has now left them in a world of pain. Other cases I also see people that need that did not enjoy the trip so much as they fatigued so quickly they had to rest after the first day for they could hardly move! A strength training program should not be considered a luxury for people undertaking this sport. It is a necessity! Unfortunately some think that doing some leg presses, leg extensions and a handful of bridges is enough to get you there. Some think their twice a week Yoga or Pilates will do the job, which may help in a small way but not even close for what you really need. Unfortunately it is not a sport you can go out to the local park and practice either. You can only practice when you are there. This is why you MUST use the gym to prepare for the dangers of not doing this are very high.
If You Want To Be Great At Skiing You Must Be Great At Squats
Strength and conditioning experts from all around the world agree that, for time spent in the gym to have a positive impact on your sports performance, you must ensure the exercises you perform, and the way you perform them, are related to your sporting movements in competition. For there is many ways to add muscle in the gym, such as leg press or leg extension but while they may add strength they will do very little for adding strength in the way you need it. Machine training is a disaster for a sporting athlete as it completely ruins the reflex timing and split second reactions of stabilizer muscles and prime movers all working together as a team to provide efficient and fluent movement.
Where as using exercises like the SQUAT involve all of these essential skills and more. The ankle, knee, hip and even the thoracic spine are all joints needed to be used in the squat and they all are very closely related to the mechanics of jumping meaning the the squat is a useful exercise for developing jump performance. The demand for stability precedes strength and this is the key in exercise selection for sports like skiing and snowboarding.
But the squat is unique in that it is also the same movement pattern needed to BRAKE! We adopt this position when we land from a jump or in the case of skiing or snowboarding when we descend a slope. We need this pattern to effectively brake and not fall face first. If you have a skill or strength deficit with this movement you are potentially exposing your body to injury. Braking skills are a key component of all of our sports specific programs.
Okay so you know that you need to squat, all you need to do is a few of these and you are ready to go, right? No. There is many things to consider which I will show you now.
Where Do You Start With Your Strength & Conditioning Program?
There is no such thing as a single set of strength exercises which is best for ALL skiers and snowboarders, instead, there are a few best Ski Specific strength-training exercises for YOU. This is because you have unique strengths and weaknesses. Injury or pain is a give away that there is a weak area that needs to be stabilized and strengthened.
For each of your weaknesses, there are a handful of strength-training exercises that will make you more stable and ultimately stronger. Your job is to identify where these weaknesses are and strengthen them. A good postural analysis and assessment of your movement patterns will find this out, and I regard this extremely important to the success of your program. I start all of my clients on a basic postural correction and movement skill program for the first few weeks to ensure their body has learned the correct position for us to then strengthen and lastly apply sport specific exercises.
Below is the training pyramid I use to train athletes in all sports.
The key is to MOVE WELL before moving with load or sports specific exercise.
Assessing Stability & Posture
Below are some videos on how you can do this and I suggest you read the article "Posture Is Everything For Preventing Injury" for more exercise examples.
Stability is an interesting concept and one that is usually skipped or just done very poorly. Use of planks, sit ups and various other abdominal related exercises will be pretty useless to the snowboarder or skier. Stabilizers react quicker than any other muscle group, to prepare the body for movement. The stabilizer muscles are smaller and much weaker than the larger moving muscles, and the only way they can work effectively and influence the integrity of movement is to fire first.
True stability is all about TIMING! Being able to react with perfect reflexes to be able to maintain joint alignment ready for efficient and smooth movement. And it not just limited to the legs or the trunk. All joints require stability!
Read our article "What Stability Really Means & How To Do It Right" for more detail on this and again with stacks of specific examples.
Learn How To Move Correctly
We have already discussed the importance of the squat but what about other movement patterns? You will need to be sure these are all functioning well too. There is 7 key patterns you need to assess and they are.
- Squat
- Bend
- Lunge
- Push
- Pull
- Twist
- Gait
Below is a quick video that shows you these in action.
The most important ones for skiers and snowboarders are in order, squat, bend, lunge and gait. Your job before you do any strengthening or specific skill work is to ensure your technique is as close to perfect as you can with the bodyweight version of each of these movement skills. Let's look at the squat in close detail for you.
By improving movement quality and strength across these patterns you improve the strength of every muscle in the body. The variation of difficulty the exercises you will need to use for each pattern will be quite different as some movements you will find easy, and others very challenging. This is where you could be using advanced progressions with the squat and lunge pattern, but a simplified regression for the bending and twisting pattern.
Always remember that your body is only as strong as your weakest link, so most of your programming should be focused on improving the areas you are weakest in.
Before I go on make sure you download a copy of our Free Report on Functional Training below as this gives you all the key movements and programs in much more detail than what I am about to show you.
Make Sure Your Squat Is Perfect
Learning to squat is actually a primitive skill you learn as a toddler, and it is where your body first finds the skill to be able to stand. Along with the lunge it is also a key foundational movement pattern essential to our ability to function in life. Without this ability we would have great difficulty in performing even the simplest everyday tasks and be reverted back to a toddler and forced to crawl, and we would definitely not be able to snowboard!
A person with limited ability to squat struggles to get out of a chair, finds getting off the floor almost impossible and will find stairs even harder. As this movement is faulty the person has no choice but to find new ways to move to pick objects up off the floor and complete many day to day tasks with compensation. Due to our sedentary lifestyle we develop tight joints, poor posture and dysfunctional movement patterns that limit our ability to squat, leading to inevitable problems at the back and the knee.
The video below provides you with a series of exercises you can use to ensure your squat form is correct. I also show you several progressions you may use.
Great article to read that features our top 7 squats is "7 Best Squats For Bulletproof Knees"
Once completing the stability and movement skill stage, you are ready to implement more of the sports specific training exercises. If you are a person who is rarely injured but feel you have lack endurance to last the entire trip, your program needs to focused on building strength endurance. It is important to note here you will need to build incredible amount of strength into your quadriceps.
These set of muscles act as your brakes when flying down the slopes. Any weakness in their ability to function in the squatting movement will potentially be disastrous to your knees, back or ankles! However you must ignore the posterior muscles of the glutes and hamstrings as these guys play a crucial role in stabilizing the hip and knee. The exercises below are just a starting point to give you an idea.
Exercises Specific For Skiing & Snowboarding
With regards to skiing and snowboarding I have provided a great video I did for Women's Health & Fitness a few years ago and 5 Ski Specific Exercises below
#1: Extreme Balance Board Squats
Exercises with a balance board are especially effective at improving the body’s nervous system for maintaining posture requiring strength, mobility, flexibility, and elasticity of the muscles, tendons and ligaments which run between the knees and toes. These particular exercises closely mimic what happens to the muscles, tendons, and ligaments of the feet, ankles, and lower legs during skiing and ultimately strengthens them exactly for the stresses they are about to encounter on the slopes!
Instructions
- Squat down into a perfect position maintaining perfect posture
- Hold the squat for 5 seconds without any part of the board hitting the floor
- Repeat 6 – 10 times
BOSU ¼ Turn Jumps
The BOSU is very similar to the balance board but gives us the ability to jump around a lot more to again mimic the action of reactivity and agility. This is often a forgotten form of training in the gym, which is also why static exercises like the leg press and leg extension will not prepare you for this type of skill or strength. Even great exercises like hip extension and the barbell squat are not necessarily going to help you with what you need when you hit bumps and moguls at high speeds. Your body needs to know how to develop strength and stability in a split second reaction to the uneven and unstable surface. This exercise is great with a partner who throws a ball to you.
Instructions
- Squat down onto the dome side of the BOSU
- In one fast action jump into the air and turn 90 degrees
- Land on the BOSU back into a squat position maintaining perfect posture
- Repeat 10-20 times
The video to the right shows you several other BOSU exercise progressions you can use.
Deceleration & Braking Skills
These are great agility exercises for developing strength into the legs.
These exercises will develop your ability to slam the brakes on and stop with good alignment and posture. On the sporting field this means it is easier to change direction, it keeps you on your feet and prevents you falling but most importantly it prevents injury. It is in this movement that we see so many non-contact ACL injuries occur so it is very important to fully concentrate on getting these exercises perfect.
The exercises shown in this video are as follows:
- 2 leg lateral jumps
- 2 leg lateral jumps for height
- 2 leg lateral jumps for speed
- Mini-hurdle maze jump
- Mini-hurdle maze jump with crossover
- Single leg FORWARD hop and stick landing
- Single leg LATERAL hop and stick landing
- Above drills added with a cutting move
Swissball Exercises
Sone of these exercises can be very useful for developing the trunk stability needed for skiing. Many of these exercises are much harder than they look and a great addition to the standing leg exercises we have just looked at. The side to side action of the exercise seen in the picture below closely mimics the movement needed by the hips for slalom and skipping over the moguls. A fantastic way to train the core and trunk for the movement without separating the legs from being involved.
The video below shows you 16 different exercises you can use to challenge your core!
Proof Of Success With Our Program
Make sure you check out the amazing testimonials and success stories from all types of clients by clicking here. But make sure you read this story below from Kate Neilson who is featured in the ski specific video below and in many of our Knee Pain videos. Having suffered a severe knee injury as a Netball player we put her on a similar program to our Skiing program and she has built her leg strength considerably to now performing the exercises I showed you in the video.
"I started to experience knee pain in my right knee 18months -2 years ago. Being an allied health professional myself, I thought the best way to treat my knee was to see an osteopath as at that stage I was unsure of the source of the pain; muscular, skeletal, a combination. I begun regular appointments with the osteopath who treated me with dry needling and deep tissue massage which was very painful (and expensive)! At this stage I was being treated for patella tendonitis. After around 5 months of no progress or change in my pain, I decided to cease treatment with the osteopath. I then started to see a physiotherapist. Again, the same story as the osteopath; lots of expensive treatment sessions and no improvement in the pain. At this stage I had stopped playing netball as I was under the impression that the hard impact of the game would make the pain worse and do some damage to the knee.
Enter Nick and the team at No Regrets. I started training with Nick 12 months ago and the first thing he did with me was an in-depth postural assessment to see how my body moves bio-mechanically and to look for clues in my movement patterns that could explain the knee pain. With the information from this detailed assessment Nick was able to tailor an individual exercise program to correct my movement patterns by addressing basic flexibility and stability first. Nick was also the first professional to view all the muscle groups as a whole and understand that they need to work together in harmony. He identified glute activation as an area that needed to be worked on which was currently impacting on how my knee's worked, as well as developing the VMO muscle to allow my knee to function in an optimal way. I begin to feel improvements in the pain within 6 weeks, and have continued to experience improvements along the way. I am now at a point where I am virtually pain free and able to play netball and train 3 times a week - something I was never able to do in the past!
Nick takes a holistic approach to rehabilitation and has an intricate understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the body, and what is required to correct knee pain.” - Kate Neilson
If You Currently Have A Knee Injury Get This Program
If you do already have an injury I highly recommend downloading the program below. This will provide you with a 60 minute video and a 85 page instruction manual you can download instantly from our online shop and come with detailed exercises and programs and all of the necessary equipment to ensure you are prepared for the upcoming season. If you currently have a knee injury make sure you get this, as it is the best product we have ever developed in over 15 years of designing Personal Training & Sports Conditioning Programs.
Conclusion
Combining gym movements that develop skills for braking, twisting and turning will not only make you a better skier than you have ever been but more importantly save you from serious injury. The exercises featured in this article will give you a great starting point to becoming strong through your entire body and prepare you for your best ever winter of skiing or snowboarding. Our Sports Specific Training has helped many athletes overcome serious injury and these exercises have been tried and tested with great success. Check out our success stories by clicking here to see more. There is also some great Free Reports you can get by clicking the images below
If you would like to know more about our Sports Specific Skiing and Snowboarding Program click the image below and I will get back to you within 24 hours.
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About The Author
Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 15 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specializes in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise.
References:
- Movement - By Gray Cook
- Corrective Exercise Solutions - by Evan Osar
- Athletes Acceleration Speed Training & Game Like Speed - by Lee Taft
- Diagnosis & Treatment Of Movement Impairment Syndromes - By Shirley Sahrman
- Low Back Disorders - by Stuart McGill
- Knee Injuries In Athletes - by Sports Injury Bulletin
- The ACL Solution - by Robert G Marx
- Understanding & Preventing Non-Contact ACL Injuries - American Orthopaedic Society For Sports Medicine
- Anatomy Trains - by Thomas Meyers
- Motor Learning and Performance - By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
- Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance - By Vladimir Janda
- Scientific Core Conditioning Correspondence Course - By Paul Chek
- Advanced Program Design - By Paul Chek
- Twist Conditioning Sports Strength - By Peter Twist
- Twist Conditioning Sports Movement - By Peter Twist
- Twist Conditioning Sports Balance - By Peter Twist